Zara Bradford | Capitol | Trainer | FIN

Shes come a long way from being known as the failure of the Bradford family. 

They were nasty people, if she was being honest with herself. Always told that if you crossed a Bradford, you better hope they don’t have something against you. Her mother was a gossip, but she also came from money. She was able to have audience’s with people that you would have to wait weeks for, simply because she was well connected. Her father had worked closely with the people that set up trainer classes, even getting involved in a few of the classes himself when he thought he was up for it.

They had four children together, and each one was destined to be involved in the games in some way. There was Xavier, the oldest, who had been told from the day he was born that he would be a stylist one day. Wesley, who shown from a young age a particular interest in machines, would someday be a gamemaker. Then came Yara, who her mother thought would be perfect to be a commentator about the games. Then Zara, who had been told from the day she was born that she would lead the capitol in everything that had to do with fighting. 

It was a task that she wasn’t sure she would ever be up for. However, it was very clear that her parents would give them whatever they needed in order to succeed. They taught him how to sew, let Wesley tinker with whatever they wanted too, gave Yara private speech lessons to make her more eloquent, and Zara?

Zara had been subjected to learning how to fight via her father. A brutal man that had never learned how to be ginger with a female. Of course, he never put himself against her, but instead, found children of other trainers that had wanted the same thing for theirs. It started with the basics, how to throw a punch, a kick, even a grapple. However, the basics never stayed basic. Sometimes Zara would be subjected to learning how to turn her punch into a combo, or to kick the opponent in a certain way to take the wind out of them. To her father, it was all about the way things were done, and therefore, learned by the fighter. He wanted Zara to be ruthless.

Well, he sort of got his wish. 

As she grew up, she had started to pick up various things that she never thought she would learn. She could tell you the importance of punching anyone with a straight arm, or even why trying to kick out someones shin was more important then trying to aim for the head. Zara had learned how to pick apart fights by simply watching them, and this impressed her father enough to leave her to her own devices. Sometimes she would sit in the back of a spar and simple make a comment here or there after some of the other students spoke, she would blurt out the answers the trainers were looking for. She was crass, bold, and full of bite. She was the spitting image of her father, even though she would never claim that. She always thought she had just a little more tack.

But soon she realized that she was her father. She was everything that he manifested into the world, just brought to life by Zara. Both of them could watch the same fight and think the same thing, and sometimes her mother would actually test this theory. It amazed her just how alike Zara and her father thought. However, Zara sort of hated it. She wanted to make her own name in the trainer academy after all. 

She had been excited to be a part of a class of people that seemed just as determined as she was. Zara had thrived in many different environments, but the best had always been one where there was a good amount of pressure. She had been pushed aside a couple times during the first couple of her classes, and she wondered if that was because she had a reputation behind her. She didn’t. But that connotation had been laid.  Some of the hardest classes had been easier for her to understand. She never wanted to have a specific specialty, but it never worked out like that for her. She had to learn all the basics of hand to hand all over again, but when it came to actually sparring, she had shown that she could keep up with some of the toughest opponents. She was good at observing others from the background, and then pinpointing their weaknesses shortly after. 

She excelled in the hand to hand, and this translated well into the weapons training she had received. Most of the time, they did not let them train with other people, mostly holograms and dummies. The last thing they wanted was to have to explain why someone died in the midst of a lesson. Zara showed a certain affinity with throwing objects and the glaive specifically. When she had a glaive in her hand, she felt like she was dancing on the battlefield. She wasn’t the type to think about this too much, but the feeling of being able to rhythmically swing a longer weapon at her opponents would make her giddy with excitement. Sometimes she would spend extra hours using the glaive against dummies, she had started to develop her own techniques with it. She had her own style of using the glaive, a ruthless style that did not give her opponents much breathing room. She was certain that she was going to make a mark on each person as they came at her, and this impressed her teachers enough to let her focus on it for her last part of training.

When she graduated the academy, she spent a good amount of time just giving private lessons to other children who had wanted to learn how to fight themselves. However, that wouldn’t last forever, because her father had wanted her to do more. Her father had challenged her to a couple matches through the years, and each time he had proven to be a force that she couldn’t keep up with. He always had one step on her, which frustrated Zara, because she felt like her own tactics were being used against her. However, that didn’t last forever. There had been many times when Zara had found ways through her father that he had not seen coming, and each time he would get meaner. 

He pushed Zara into the trainer tournament, and that was her chance to actualize what her father had wanted for her. She had a lot to prove, but nothing that she couldn’t take on. She wanted to make a name for herself, and this was the perfect moment for her to do so.  She would rise to the occasion or die trying.